Thursday, February 27, 2014

When you think Republicans cannot sink any lower, along comes Speaker Boehner and Ryan to prove otherwise as I just learned from an email:

Republican Speaker John Boehner just broke the news that Republicans in the House expect to pass Paul Ryan's disastrous budget this year. As you know, Paul Ryan’s budgets have called for slashing seniors’ health care benefits, ending the Medicare guarantee, and handing huge tax breaks to the top 1%.

Some things don't change with today's Republicans favoring the top 1% and the rest of us can pound salt for all they care. Never seen anything like it and it is starting to filter down to Republicans in the States. What happened to the Republican Party of old? How long have they been like this and many of us missed the signs? Many of the office holders some of us worked for their elections and know personally are not the same people and come up with some of the dumbest comments day after day. Hard to equate a party many of us worked for to today's party of the rich. Can remember for years being told the Democrats have the most wealth -- more narrative versus facts. Have to admit the GOP PR machine has been better at churning out lies then the Democrats over the years.

How can you not guarantee Medicare when it has been guaranteed for years? Makes no sense but then little of what the GOP does today makes sense. Their oath is to support and defend the Constitution not support and defend the Koch Bros and their millions.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Rep Ryan (R-WI) who heads the House Committee on the Budget and was Romney's VP candidate, is one of the more dishonest people in the house as he says one thing about his budget but when you read it, his comments are hollow. Just went to the site of his Committee and all I can find is info from the 2013 budget -- it is like the 2014 budget is cloaked in secrecy.

Why do they want to cut Medicare benefits to the people but protect what doctors get paid? Talk about class warfare -- that describes the GOP efforts today to make sure their wealthy donors, Koch Bros, and others get what they want out of Congress. We now know the attacks on the EPA over the years was to lessen regulations on polluting and other things so the Koch's had a free reign to pollute at will.

Republicans have launched a party-wideattack blitz against Democrats over payment cuts to private insurers under Medicare Advantage, which covers one-third of Medicare beneficiaries. The savings were enacted under Obamacare, then included in the Ryan budgets for each of the last three years. Nearly all Republicans voted for them.

Instead of using the money to finance Obamacare, Republicans used the roughly $150 billion in savings to help cover the cost of their tax cuts and meet their deficit reduction targets. (The Medicare cuts to providers and insurers under Obamacare total about $700 billion.) Without them, it'd be harder to make the Ryan plan's numbers add up. It's already awkward for Republicans to attack cuts they've supported without a fuss in the past, but it'd be more embarrassing to vote for cuts they're simultaneously using as a key campaign issue in the 2014 elections.

Then there's Social Security. Republican leaders have been attacking President Barack Obama for rescinding a provision in his budget to cut future benefits. "This reaffirms what has become all too apparent: the president has no interest in doing anything, even modest, to address our looming debt crisis," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

Notably, the provision -- known as Chained CPI, which slows the rate of inflation for benefits -- was not included in any of the GOP's own budgets, which left Social Security untouched. But if it's a mere modest step toward avoid a debt crisis, as they now say, Republicans would have a tough time justifying excluding it from their budget.

That said, if they do take up the policy, Republicans would make themselves vulnerable to attacks for seeking to cut the highly popular retirement program. Democrats would pounce, and the attacks could be especially damaging among elderly voters, who vote in large numbers and tend to prefer Republicans. They would also be undercutting their own election arm's attacks on Democratic candidate Alex Sink of Florida for speaking favorably about a comprehensive deficit-reduction plan that cuts Social Security.